Inorganic oxides are relatively important constituents of many of the modern technological products in use today. They are especially important in the ceramics and glass industries and have been under investigation for many years for many varied uses.
Typically, solid melting techniques were used to blend inorganic oxides to make glass or ceramics. Thus, oxides were, and still are for most applications, ground up into fine particles, with silicon dioxides being the major constituent in most cases, and incorporated into glass matrices by melting and blending at temperatures of up to 2000.degree. C. Not only is this process cumbersome but the method leads to products with different phases causing inhomogeneity in the product which leaves a physical weakness in the final product.
Also, owing to the melting method's inefficiency, only certain applications can be undertaken, as the very high temperatures used to ceramify the glasses also limits the types of substrates that can be used. Moreover, the method consumes tremendous amounts of energy.